Doctors Without Borders (MSF), together with the Roma 2 local healthcare authority and Médecins du Monde (MDM) have set up a telephone service run by doctors and cultural mediators to help meet the medical needs of Italians and foreigners in reception centers and makeshift settlements in the Italian capital.
Doctors Without Borders has ended a cooperation saving migrants stranded at sea after its partner suspended rescue missions due to the coronavirus. The NGO has accused the EU of using the outbreak to keep migrants away.
The aid agency Doctors Without Borders is extremely concerned about the threat that the new coronavirus presents to the overcrowded Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. DW spoke with MSF's Florian Westphal.
The Norwegian Refugee Council has warned that the coronavirus could decimate refugee communities around the world if more measures are not put in place to tackle the issue for these vulnerable groups.
Marco Sandrone, the Lesbos field coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has denounced the dire situation on the island, likening it to a war zone. He also stressed that Moria was "too much" for children living there and called on the EU to evacuate people.
The humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has urged Italian authorities to let NGO-run vessels carry out rescue operations without quarantining them in connection with the coronavirus emergency. "Putting rescue vessels in quarantine is like stopping an ambulance in the middle of an emergency," the organization said.
After weathering storms and saving shipwrecked migrants in the Mediterranean, the Ocean Viking is quarantined in Italy. DW’s Miodrag Soric documents the mission, the people saved and life on board a rescue vessel.
Hoping for a better life in Europe, many people are still undertaking the perilous journey from northern Africa across the Mediterranean Sea. DW reporter Miodrag Soric went onboard the "Ocean Viking," a ship that rescues migrants off the Libyan coast.
The teams from two private rescue ships, the Alan Kurdi and the Ocean Viking, made several rescues over the weekend in the Mediterranean. In total, the two ships say they have 484 people on board. They are now hoping to find a safe harbor.
On Thursday night, the Ocean Viking rescued 92 migrants, including pregnant women and children off the Libyan coast. Those rescued were "extremely weak and soaked in petrol" said the rescue team.
Many migrant farmworkers in the Matera region in Italy suffer from diseases linked to poor working and living conditions, and lack sufficient access to public healthcare, Doctors Without Borders says in a new report.
The Alan Kurdi and Ocean Viking rescue ships were given permission to dock in Italian ports on Wednesday morning and safely offload their 121 passengers. Both ships rescued migrants from the Mediterranean on November 28 and had been waiting for approval to enter a safe port.